


Close To Your Heart

by Stressedtoimpress



Series: Heathers [3]
Category: Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Abusive Parents, Abusive Relationships, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Tragedy, As you can tell JD isn’t okay, Backstory, Canonical Character Death, Death, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Explosions, F/M, Feels, Heavy Angst, I saw this headcanon on insta a week ago and was all for it, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Lockets, Lots of it, Manipulation, Self-Harm, Short paragraphs bc I have a short attention span, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, What Have I Done, im gonna get you in the heart, read the notes, yep it’s one of these stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-17 13:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14189718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stressedtoimpress/pseuds/Stressedtoimpress
Summary: Ever since it was gifted to him as a kid, JD always kept a locket around his neck. As he got older he learned to hide it, but it was always there. He was told it was to keep the people close to him close to his heart, so for 10 years it held a picture of his mother and only a picture of his mother, until one fateful night when something clicked and the other side of the locket was filled with a picture of a one Veronica Sawyer. He kept the locket close to his heart always, even in his final moments.





	Close To Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Hey I saw someone on Instagram headcanon this a while back (I don’t remember who, sorry), and I was like “hEY LOOK FANFIC MATERIAL” so here we are. Also I didn’t put this under the Heather movie fandom as well because it’s soley based off of the musical because it’s really hard to sympathize with JD I’m the movie.

     JD always kept a locket.

     Ever since his seventh birthday when it was gifted to him by one of his extended family members. 

     “You can put two pictures in it,” they explained. “You should put in pictures of people you love so you can always keep them close to your heart.”

     JD didn’t get it at first. Why keep pictures of them close to your heart when you can physically have them with you?

     Well, ‘them’ was a stretch. He only loved one person, his mother. He didn’t have any friends, though his teachers had said he was supposed to love his father; but he couldnt even if he tried. His father was cold and mean, always yelling at him and his mother. One time he threw an almost empty bottle of beer across the wall, narrowly avoiding his mother’s head while he hid under his bed. 

     He didn’t love his father.

     At first he wore the locket around his neck even though he saw no point in it because his mother told him to.

     “To show you care for your aunt,” she had said. He didn’t care for his aunt, he never saw her, but he did it because it made his mother happy.

     It was a few months after his seventh birthday that he finally understood the meaning of the locket.

     He clutched the locket tightly to his chest as he watched his mother trudge into that library. He clutched it tightly to his chest as he watched her wipe the tears from her face. He clutched it tightly to his chest as he watched her heartbrokenly wave through the window at him and say the words ‘I love you’.

     He clutched it tightly to his chest as his father counted down from ten and the library was blasted to pieces in glorious blast.

     He clutched it tightly to his chest as he cried himself to sleep that night, curled up in a ball; alone. No ‘I’m sorry son” or “It’ll be okay” from his father. Just alone.

     The next morning he fished a picture of his mother out of the trash that used to be in his father’s wallet. One of the corners was folded over and it was very scratched up, looking like it would rip in half any second, but it was perfect. He carefully slid the photo of her into the right side of the locket.

     His extended family stopped showing up to birthdays after that.

     After everything, he always kept the locket. Over the years, he learned to hide it so that other kids would stop making fun of him for it, but he always kept it.

     He kept the locket through all fourteen times he moved. He didn’t keep many personal items, and those that he did he only kept for a few years before replacing them. Well, except for the locket.

     The locket was the only constant thing in his life. The only thing he could trust.

     He clutched the locket to his chest as he locked himself in his room, hiding from his father’s drunken rage.

     He clutched it to his chest as he lied on the ground, broken from the other kid’s beatings.

     He clutched it to his chest as he stared at himself in the mirror with those dull eyes that had purple moons stamped under them, a shell of his former self.

     He clutched it to his chest as he tore his arms to pieces with the razor blade kept in his bathroom cabinet.

     He clutched it to his chest as his father walked in on him bloody by the bathroom sink, only to respond with an ‘I’ll leave you to it’ as he quietly shut the door.

     He clutched it to his chest as he suspiciously lurked outside the 7-11 with a better alternative to the razor but still no will to live.

     Through all of it he still hung onto that damn golden locket.

     He kept that single photo in the locket for ten years until a one Veronica Sawyer walked into his life.

     He didn’t know what to think of her at first. She was smart, but very susceptible to pressure. It wasn’t until one fateful night that things changed.

     She had broken into his house telling him to take off his pants, and under normal circumstances he would’ve been concerned; but he wasn’t. She gently caressed his cheek and told him that she didn’t believe he was numb inside. She told him he was beautiful.

     She made him _feel_ things again, and more importantly she made him feel _loved_.

     He fell in love with her that night.

     As soon as he could get his hands on a picture of her he slipped it into the left side of the locket. Compared to his mother’s photo, her photo was pristine and new and hasn’t been worn away at by time. It too, was perfect.

     Veronica never found out what he did with the photo he asked her for, but he always hoped she knew just how much he loved her.

     Even as he lied to her about which mug she grabbed, he loved her.

     Even as he told her to fake a suicide note to cover up Heather Chandler’s death, he loved her.

     Even as he tricked her into luring Kurt and Ram to the cemetery he loved her.

     Even as he wrapped his arms around her from behind as she squirmed to get out of his grasp and sobbed over the corpses of the football players, he loved her.

     Even as he found himself pointing a gun at her forehead because she said ‘we’re over’ he loved her.

     Even as he told her parents that she was suicidal so her death wouldn’t raise any suspicions, he loved her.

     Even as he climbed through her window and pounded on her door, demanding that she open it and join in on his plan instead, he loved her.

     Even as he shot the lock off her door and saw her body hanging there, limp, he loved her.

     Even as he strapped the bomb to his school’s boiler room and started the countdown, he loved her.

     Even as he refused to come with her and live a normal life with her _still_ after she had begged him over and over again, he loved her.

     Even as he fought over a gun with her as the cheerleaders obliviously cheered above them, he loved her.

     Even as he eventually lost and she shot him in the stomach, he loved her.

     Even as he watched her grab the bomb and run out to the field, planning on taking only herself down and leaving him alone in this world, he loved her.

     Even as he took the bomb from her hands, giving his speech in his last minute of life, he loved her.

     And after all of that, he still kept that little gold box around his neck. It had survived it all. As he snapped open the locket for the last time, viewing the precious pictures of the only two people he ever loved, he finally understood what love was about.

     He clutched the locket to his chest one last time and repeated to her ‘our love is god’ hoping that she still loved him, and Veronica said her parting words to him.

     “Say hi to god.”

     

     

**Author's Note:**

> if anyone makes a DEH reference about his mother I stg


End file.
